Jim Harbaugh lost two assistant coaches on the defensive side of the ball earlier this week.

He’s going to end it by adding another name on offense.

Josh Gattis, who was co-offensive coordinator and wide receivers coach this past season at Alabama, was named Michigan’s new offensive coordinator on Thursday. The hire was first reported by The Athletic.

“The offense and passing games under Josh’s direction have achieved at a very high level throughout his coaching career,” head coach Jim Harbaugh said in a news release from the program. “Josh will provide leadership to our offense while being a great mentor to our student-athletes and an outstanding addition to our coaching staff.”

The impact Josh Gattis had at Vandy, Penn State and on that young WR group at Alabama this past year was very impressive. Landing him is probably the best addition for Michigan since Harbaugh got Don Brown. https://t.co/fHBITiRZSu

Gattis, 34, spent one season with the Crimson Tide and four at Penn State, where he coached wide receivers and was the program’s offensive recruiting coordinator from 2014 to 2017.

He also coached receivers at Vanderbilt in 2012 and 2013 and Western Michigan in 2011. According to The Athletic’s Bruce Feldman, Gattis will call plays for Michigan in 2019.

The hire is a big one for Harbaugh and the Michigan offense, which ranked 50th nationally in yards per game in 2018. It was never publicly revealed who was calling the plays last season, but Harbaugh, assistant head coach and passing-game coordinator Pep Hamilton and offensive line coach Ed Warinner were all believed to be involved in some capacity.

“It’s an honor and a privilege to join the University of Michigan football family under Coach Harbaugh, one of the most successful head coaches in all of football,” Mattis said in the release.

“This is the leadership challenge I’ve coveted. The football tradition at the University of Michigan is among the very best in college athletics. My family and I couldn’t be more excited in Ann Arbor.”

Gattis -- a former safety who played collegiately at Wake Forest, and had a short stint in the NFL -- marks the first offensive coordinator at Michigan since 2017, when Tim Drevno held the title, managed the run game and coached the offensive line. He resigned last February, leading to the Warinner hire.

While the Michigan offense made improvements in 2018, the unit was hampered by the same conservative, stale play calling of 2017 in losses to Notre Dame and Ohio State.

What this means, if anything, for Hamilton is unclear. He just started the third of a four-year contract that pays him more than $1 million annually. Harbaugh said last month before the Peach Bowl that he planned to promote offensive analyst Ben McDaniels to wide receivers coach, after Jim McElwain left in December to take the head-coaching job at Central Michigan.

With Gattis and McDaniels presumably on staff, Michigan now has room for one more on-field assistant coach. Greg Mattison (defensive line) and Al Washington (linebackers) departed Michigan for Ohio State earlier this week.